Collaboration
Group 4
For teachers to be able to provide relevant and engaging teaching and learning,
teachers have to be GOOD teachers!!!

Some possible ways to do this will be through:

Peer observation and peer assessment
Encourage team planning and work together through evaluation of the lesson implementation, and give feedback on pedagogy,
Planning across subjects and within subject areas
Mutual Observation Groups-should not be from same discipline, non-intrusive, non-threatening
Professional Development Circles
Other forms of teaching other than classroom teaching, project-based teaching
Transparent classrooms/No walls
Use a range of different activities and strategies
Creating time for collaboration-it should be part of the structure
You need champions-develop them and send them to workshops

Inquiry Based Classrooms

  • hire Kath Murdoch and let her do it (kidding)
  • ensure there is time/space for it to happen - so re-look schedules/timetables/restrictions
  • visit each other’s classrooms; model; collaborate; share
  • departments to pick a unit they currently teach and design it in a way to be more inquiry-based; present to staff
  • take incremental, realistic steps forward; work on school’s culture to ensure it is a safe environment for learning, taking risks, ‘failing’ and trying again
  • be non-judgemental and supportive of each other’s individual stage of development
  • ask some of the more articulate students discuss some of the classrooms/lessons they have experienced
  • use MYP planner to re-draft a unit and focus on reflecting on what inquiries arose


INQUIRY-BASED CLASSROOMS (Group 5)

1. Have administrators model possibilities with the teachers (Flip Thinking)

2. Sharing among faculty (K-W-L Type)

3. Provide structure for vertical and horizontal meetings (schedule, location, etc.)

4. Have teachers feel success with their initiatives (include in teacher performance assessment) – start small and acknowledge efforts. Celebrate success, recognize efforts.

5. Use the Unit Planner to collaborative on making the subjects classrooms inquiry based

6. Form professional learning communities to encourage discussions about it

7. Administrators to provide tools and resources about it